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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25853731">Shelter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper'>AgentStannerShipper</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Star Trek Bingo 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: The Next Generation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Discussions of Underage Sex, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I REALLY DONT KNOW HOW TO TAG THIS, Non-Starfleet AU, Nonverbal Communication, but nothing happens while tasha is underage, buts its shockingly domestic, implied sex and masturbation, its a little violent at points but i dont think its graphic?, its a shitty place to live and the fic reflects that, mute!data, protector!data, references to noncon, soong built data on turkana IV instead of omicron theta, spot is here because i said so, the tags say grimdark but i feel like the fic itself is much lighter, turkana IV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:14:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25853731</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Life on Turkana IV is hard. Resources are scarce, people are rough, and the cadres are closing in on every side. You make the little pockets of life that you can, and hope you can find a few good people you can trust. Tasha has Data, and that's more than enough for her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Data/Tasha Yar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Star Trek Bingo 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875274</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shelter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the bingo prompt "non-Starfleet AU." This fic has a lot of elements that I've wanted to work with for awhile: a universe where Tasha never left Turkana, for one, and one where Data was constructed there instead of Omicron Theta, and how that might reflect in his design. He's got more of a "partially-finished" vibe, lots of metal visible (and I'm a sucker for a nice pair of leather gloves in any context). He also lacks vocal cords, and so communicates through a form of sign language. After a bit of research on how best to write that, the result is some minor edits to his speech pattern, but everything he says is still in quotation marks. He just signs it instead of speaking aloud. If people who actually communicate through sign have any tips on how to do better with that, I'd love to hear them, because I wanted to get that right. </p><p>For warnings, I'm sorry if the tags aren't super clear. This fic walks a weird line between grim and domestic, and that's hard to tag. There are references to violence and noncon (ie the rape gangs, etc. that are canon for Turkana). It's present throughout the fic, but not overly graphic. Tasha does not experience any form of sexual assault in this fic, although she does reflect on a close call (altered from how the events go in canon, where she is actually raped) and the fact that it's common here. As for the tags referencing underage: Tasha is twelve when she finds Data. When she is fifteen, she attempts to initiate sex with him, and Data stops her. Tasha continues to fantasize about him, but they have no sexual contact until she's in her twenties. The age thing is a little weird, largely because Data doesn't age and looks to be in his mid-to-late twenties the whole time, but I feel like, in the context of the fic, it makes sense? I don't know, we'll see. Let me know if I've missed any tags, or if I should bump up the rating/warnings.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was getting late. Of course, the concept of ‘late’ or ‘early’ was relative underground, but Tasha went to the surface often enough to scavenge for food or supplies to have a pretty good idea of roughly what time of day it was, and soon it would be darker on the surface than it was in the tunnels, the latter at least lit by the occasional dimly flickering light, some from natural sources and some from the last lingering bits of broken-down technology that littered the crumbling city. Her encampment, nestled in the middle of a few a sequestered side-tunnels, was comprised of a dug-out hollow, hidden behind a few tattered curtains and carefully arranged bits of board. It wasn’t very big, just over the length of her body in any given direction, but its position made it easy to miss and easy to slip out the back in case of an attack. A tiny, constructed light pulsed weakly, illuminating the etchings along the grimy walls, ground on with white rock in a pattern of angular lines and circles.</p><p>Tasha had her knife out, the sharp blade glinting as she focused her attention on the rat in hand, both the metal and her skin wet with its blood as she sliced it open, methodically skinning the creature and removing the inedible bits. Beside her, curled up in the shadows, an inaptly-named ginger cat watched her work, and rumbled appreciatively when Tasha tossed her a few of the internal organs, gulping them down raw.</p><p>A rustling sounded, like the curtains parting, and both cat and woman snapped their heads up, Tasha jerking up into a crouch, rat abandoned as she clutched the knife in hand. Just as the last board shifted, the cat lurched to her feet, brushing past Tasha to dance around the entrance, winding her way around the intruder’s feet. Tasha lowered the blade with a huff of relief, and Data quirked his eyebrow at her. “Only me,” he signed, then reached down to rub ‘Spot’ behind the ears, the ginger cat – spotless, Tasha would point out, except for smudges of dirt matted into her coat - purring loudly at the attention from her favorite person.</p><p>Tasha dropped back against the wall, falling into a cross-legged sit as she picked up the rat again, finishing skinning it with ruthless precision and dropping the carcass into a cloth bundle for later. She watched the android set to work, unloading other cloth wraps onto the floor between them, and asked, “Find anything interesting?”</p><p>She signed, even as she spoke aloud. Data didn’t need to see it to understand – he might not have been able to speak verbally, but his hearing was far better than hers, after all – but Tasha had gotten into the habit a long time ago. You never knew when communicating in perfect silence could mean the difference between life and death, and on Turkana, you couldn’t afford to let any skill get rusty.</p><p>“Some roots,” Data signed back, indicating the piles with a nod of his head. He unwrapped a few to show her. “Flowering season over. Monsoons coming.”</p><p>Tasha cursed softly to herself, but it wasn’t really unexpected. They had some dried fruits and things left over from the height of the growing season, but if the monsoons were about to set in it would mean a lack of fresh plants to eat until the storm season passed. It was dangerous to try to harvest anything that grew in the height of the season, and just because Data could probably weather the wind and the rain didn’t mean she was prepared to spend the whole week drying out his circuits every time he went to the surface. She didn’t need her partner glitching during monsoon season. She’d need the backup, because without the option to forage on the surface for those few months, people got mean. Well. Meaner.</p><p>Spot wandered over, climbing into Data’s lap, headbutting him until he obediently stroked her, his black gloves dark against her fur. Tasha hadn’t wanted to name her, hadn’t wanted to get attached, but Data had insisted. They’d had the cat for years now, so Tasha supposed it had worked out.</p><p>Textiles weren’t exactly accessible to anyone – not unless you were in favor with the drug lords, or one of the two major cadres, who could afford to do business with the handful of trade ships that passed by and were willing to brave the planet and its inhabitants – and Tasha and Data’s clothes were both worn and ragged, but his gloves were close to pristine. He took good care of them, and for good reason. Tasha rarely got to see what was beneath them, but she remembered it vividly, the sharp angles and unnatural clicks of his metal fingers. It wasn’t like he was completely covered in false skin, but unlike the metal plates of his skull around where his left eye should have been (unlike his right, bright yellow but still almost human, Data’s left eye was a small composite of sensors, overtly mechanical in design) or the similar patches across his shoulders and ribs, there was something eerie about seeing the constructed fingers, every thin metal bar and screw exposed, like the meat had been peeled away. Without the gloves, it was too easy for such a delicate mechanism to get jammed, with water or dirt or blood, so he wore them more often than not. Tasha had wondered, more than once, why his creator had been willing to build an android who was incomplete. Data couldn’t say, and not just because he’d been designed apparently without vocal cords. He didn’t have any memories from before Tasha had woken him up.</p><p>Data nudged her with his foot, and she glanced back to him. Peeking out from under his gloves, the bands around his wrists between where the pale bioplastic skin ended and the visible mechanism began glowed, flashing as he signed, like his own personal beacon unless he deactivated the function. “Saw Askel on my way back. Says cadres broke three gangs in the last week. Their territories are coming this way.”</p><p>Tasha swore. “We just moved a couple months ago. At this rate, there isn’t going to be <em>any</em> territory left for the rest of us. I’m sick of running like this every time the cadres get a new acquisition.”</p><p>Data quirked his eyebrow, tilting his head into a question. He signed, “Ishara?”</p><p>Tasha swallowed, her lip curling. She stared at the ground for a long moment. It had been years since she had spoken to her baby sister. The fight when Ishara had chosen to join the Coalition had come almost to physical blows, to the point where Data had had to forcibly separate the two sisters. Tasha couldn’t understand why Ishara would have chosen to join one of the cadres, those <em>bullies</em>, over her own sister. They hadn’t spoken since.</p><p>She forced her voice to stay glib. “I would have thought Ishara was the last person you wanted to contact, after some of the things she said about you.” It had been pretty vicious, insults spat as if Data hadn’t been the one to keep them safe when Tasha couldn’t, hadn’t stayed with them, protected them, gathered food for them and watched over them while they slept. As if he wasn’t a member of their tiny family. He might have been a machine, but as far as Tasha was concerned, he was so much more.</p><p>Data leveled a pointed look at her, tapping one finger against where his heart should have been. Tasha snorted. “Right. You don’t have any feelings to hurt. Keep telling yourself that, baby, and maybe one day you’ll get me to believe it.”</p><p>It prompted a smile from Data, a short huff of breath that was the closest to a laugh that he was capable of. His smile was edged, but it had been like that for years. He’d been different when she’d first activated him, a little softer, a little sweeter, but Turkana had a way of taking all soft things and making them sharp. That was alright. Tasha had no use for the kind of sweet Data had been. What he was now, that was what she needed.</p><p>“Besides,” she said. “The nearest working comcon is almost a four hour walk into claimed territory anyway, and that’s assuming it hasn’t broken down in the last few years. There’s no point making that trek on a maybe, especially not when Ishara probably can’t do anything to begin with. I don’t think the Coalition is going to listen to a sixteen-year-old girl asking nicely for them to leave just a little bit of territory untouched so her sister and her android can come and go as they please.” And that was assuming Ishara was inclined to help them at all. They were lucky, Tasha supposed, that Ishara hadn’t mentioned Data to the Coalition to begin with. She couldn’t have done: if she had, they would have been swarming after him. An android would be an asset to whoever had him, either to keep as a weapon (assuming anyone could make Data bow to their will), to sell wholepiece to the drug lords for amusement, or to break down into valuable scrap.  </p><p>Ishara had wanted to scrap Data when they’d found him. It had been a bit of luck, and Tasha really didn’t know how no one else had come across him first. They’d been out foraging, and he’d been half-hidden, but barely, half-submerged in one of the swamps that lined the wreckage of the supposedly once-great Turkana City. Tasha guessed that he had washed in from deeper into the forests, probably during one of the monsoon floods. She’d never seen anything like it. She’d wondered, at first, if he was simply dead, his skin shimmering oddly golden but so pale, unbreathing. She’d traced the visible metal, around his eye, down his neck and across his shoulders, running the backs of her fingers over his ribs and the spindly mechanisms that made up his hands. He could have belonged to one of the drug lords, she thought. They lived in the few buildings left above the surface, the towers of Turkana City. She’d heard they decorated people for their own amusement, but she had always taken it to mean silks and precious stones for their kept women, maybe metal pierced through flesh or symbols burned into the skin. A closer examination had disproved it; it was not metal sutured into flesh, but a fake, plastic sort of skin stretched over a metal frame. When she’d run her hands over his forearms, she had been able to dig in, to pop open a panel of flickering circuits, waterlogged and barely blinking. Ishara had been thrilled, seven at the time and only concerned with how much all those pieces might go for, how it might mean not eating rats for <em>months</em>, maybe more. Tasha knew Yar would have sold him in a heartbeat, but Yar was dead, and even at twelve years old, Tasha knew this was an important decision. You couldn’t trust a man, she knew, but a mechanical man…</p><p>She’d dragged him from the swamp to the edge of the tunnels, hiding him in one of the mostly-destroyed structures. She’d done everything she could to dry him out, keeping a fire going when she was certain the smoke wouldn’t be seen, keeping all the panels she could find open to let the heat reach beneath them. After eighteen days, her diligence had paid off. Data’s eyes had blinked open, and he’d sat up. Initial communication had been halting. It would be months before the handful of hand signals that Yar had taught Tasha in her career as a thief would blend with the hand signs Data had already been programmed with, morphing into a more developed language, and it would be over a year before they could communicate back and forth with ease. Back then it had been slow and painstaking, lots of yes and no questions, but Tasha had been satisfied by one thing: Data was strong. He was clever. And he wasn’t going to hurt them. Ishara might have pouted, but Data was worth more than a few months eating well. Tasha had been right. He was more valuable to keep.</p><p>At age twelve, she hadn’t known just how much.</p><p>Data paused in petting Spot to briefly wrap a hand around Tasha’s ankle, squeezing gently. He let go, and signed, “Moving on?”</p><p>Tasha sighed. She let her head fall back against the wall, chewing her lip as she thought. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she decided. “It’s late.” She rummaged in her pocket, pulling out their flint rocks, striking them into the little metal dish they kept in the corner. She skewered the rat on a stick, and Data watched as she stuck it over the flames. The smoke was unpleasant, but being hungry was worse, and Tasha nibbled on a piece of dried fruit while the meat cooked. Data didn’t eat, couldn’t even taste it. Part of Tasha would have liked to share her meals, revel in the intimacy of the act, but it would have been a waste. Practicality came first.</p><p>She extinguished the fire, pulling the rat out and biting into it, spitting out the bones. Spot pounced on them, gnawing at them to get the scraps, and Data moved from his side of the wall to hers. Tasha leaned into him. He was always the perfect temperature, cool when the heat got bad and warm when the nights grew cold. Something about his internal programming, heating or cooling the fluids that ran through his systems, Tasha guessed, but she could really only speculate to how he worked. It seemed sometimes like there was nothing he couldn’t do.</p><p>Wouldn’t, that was another story. On Turkana, you did what you had to survive, but Data had the luxury of his strength. Tasha had seen him break bone, but he had never taken a life. Tasha had, once, not long after she’d found Data. A rape gang had cornered her, had tried to kill Spot before the cat had gotten away, had grabbed her and laughed as they’d torn at her clothes. But Data had found her, just in time, grabbing them and throwing the men as if they weighed nothing, and Tasha had managed to grab her knife and sink it into the chest of the nearest one, snarling with rage. The others had fled, although not before Tasha had watched Data grip one man’s hand and squeeze it, her eyes widening at the sound of shattering bones, turned practically to dust under his grip. Data’s eyes had burned. Later, Tasha would reflect that that moment had defined Data’s programming. It had changed something, from his simplistic sweetness into something harder, protective. In a variety of ways.</p><p>Because that was another thing Data wouldn’t do. One of the first things Tasha had said to him was a threat – he didn’t touch Ishara, and he didn’t touch her. Tasha knew all about the rape gangs. She knew what men liked to do to girls, what the drug lords would pay for someone young and pretty, what they wanted them for. Data had looked astonished at the suggestion, but after the incident, he no longer seemed surprised. And he hadn’t touched her, even as Tasha had gotten a little older, and had started…feeling things, strange and vaguely uncomfortable things that had made her act instinctually, working out in the dark that there were touches that made her body sing with delight. She’d dreamt, sometimes, of yellow eyes and mechanical hands, and woken up flushed and damp with sweat and…other things, heat pooling in her gut. She’d been fifteen the first time she tried to touch Data like that, the way she’d once seen her mother touch a man who gave her joy dust for the act. Data had recoiled, had seized her hands and yanked them away, and Tasha had almost expected her fingers to be crushed into dust like the man when she was twelve. But Data’s hands were gentle, even if his grip was hard. He’d shaken his head, and when he’d let go he’d signed firmly, “<em>no</em>,” his expression insistent. Tasha had never stopped thinking about it, but she hadn’t tried again. She wasn’t sure why Data had stopped her. She’d never asked. She’d been told she was pretty, and at fifteen she was the perfect age. Most pretty girls were taken by the time they reached fifteen. If it hadn’t been for Data, she would have been.</p><p>Tasha didn’t fear the rape gangs anymore. She hadn’t in years, because of Data and her own skill with a blade, but at twenty-one she feared them even less. She’d be a target only if they got desperate, or if pickings in the vicinity were slim. She was getting too old, too strong to be worth it. She wasn’t one of their joy dust whores. But she thought she caught Data looking at her sometimes, the way she sometimes looked at him. With want. He always looked away, his expression tight. Tasha didn’t know what that meant.</p><p>She nuzzled against his shoulder. Fed and warm, the night dragged down on her, and Tasha snuggled deeper into Data’s side. He wrapped an arm around her and signed, “Sleep.” The first few months with Data, Tasha had barely slept a wink, keeping vigil over Ishara, making sure Data didn’t try to run. Now, she gave herself over willingly. Data would keep watch. He didn’t need to sleep.</p><p>She dreamt of his hands again, the firm planes of his body against her own. She dreamt of tracing his metal paneling with her tongue, and gloved fingers slipping into her, washing her in pleasure.</p><p>She was startled awake by a yowl from Spot, the cat vocalizing noisily as she tore at a rat carcass killed in the night. Data was no longer beside her; instead, Tasha had been laid gently on the floor, a bundle of fabric pillowed under her head while Data rescued the rat from Spot, only slightly mangled. Tasha pushed herself into a seated position, clenching her legs together against a lingering trace of dampness between them. Data glanced her way, without smiling, and Tasha forced herself not to blush. They’d been in this position many times, the hazards of living in such close quarters. Data never brought it up, but Tasha knew he could tell. She tried not to touch herself when he was near, waiting until they were able to slip into the swamps to bathe, the water obscuring the movements of her hand, or taking care of it when he stood watch outside, pretending that he wouldn’t hear the slick sounds of skin against skin, her bitten-back keens and her desperate efforts to say anything but his name when the pleasure swallowed her whole. But she was only human, and Data never commented on her human impulses, even when she lapsed. She wondered, sometimes, if he did the same to himself when she was sleeping. If he pleasured himself, and thought of her. But then, Data didn’t have any human impulses to speak of.</p><p>She cleared her throat. “How long was I out?”</p><p>“Six hours,” Data signed.</p><p>“That long?”</p><p>He nodded, passing her a bag of nuts when her stomach gave a low growl, the shells already cracked, the meat inside smoked and salty. Tasha chewed thoughtfully, and Data signed, “Stay or go?”</p><p>That was the question, wasn’t it? Tasha could just remember the days before the cadres had come to such power, when dozens of gangs roamed the tunnels, slicing up territory and brawling over the meager resources. Now none could rival their power: the drug lords in their towers kept them well supplied with weapons, enough to let their territories keep expanding, swallowing up the old gangs. You either joined them, accepted life under their terms, or you died. You paid the steep tolls for moving through the tunnels, the ‘taxes’ they collected when you bartered, if they caught you at it. If you wanted to access the few working comcon panels, it would cost you. If you wanted to go to the surface, or to bring something back, it would cost you. You either agreed willingly, or they would take what they wanted by force. But Tasha didn’t like bullies, and she wasn’t about to submit to the Coalition <em>or </em>the Alliance, no matter what Ishara had claimed about their intentions. Besides. Tasha had seen the prices her mother had paid – not to the cadres, but to men like them – for food and shelter and, above all, the joy dust that Tasha would rather die than touch again, and she wasn’t about to do the same. As for Data, if they knew, they would try to take him away from her. Tasha was pretty sure they’d regret it, but there were only two of them, and the cadres were rumored to have dozens, or more. She couldn’t chance it.</p><p>“The tunnels don’t extend much farther out,” Tasha pointed out aloud. She tapped her knuckles against her knees, contemplating, then kept signing with her words. “Anything more than a couple miles out is dead ends and broken mineshafts.”</p><p>Data made a distinct hand gesture, a snapping twist at the neck, his expression wry, and Tasha snorted a laugh. “Exactly.” Cave ins and sharp drops might keep the cadres from coming after them, but Tasha had been taught to read the warnings posted. If the fall didn’t kill her, the dust-sickness was likely to. “So, there’s no turf left underground if we want to be left alone.”</p><p>“Surface?” Data questioned.</p><p>Tasha chewed on her lip, the corners of her mouth twisting into a thin frown. The surface was barely habitable: the only major structures left were the towers, the drug lords’ domain. Wind and rain buffeted the surface even when the monsoons weren’t in season, and it only got worse when they were. Yar had warned Tasha that living in the city ruins long-term could bring the dust-sickness on as deadly as the cave-ins, but she’d also heard rumors of a few survivors who made their homes there, or deep in the forests and swamps. “It’s dangerous,” she murmured. “I doubt Spot would like the wet.” She scratched through the cat’s fur, and Spot purred, rubbing up against Tasha’s leg. “That’s assuming we survive.”</p><p>The we came naturally, and she glanced at Data, but he didn’t dispute it, even though Tasha knew that even when she died, he was liable to keep living. A man who was virtually indestructible could have ruled the city, could have taken any weapon, any women he wanted. But he was all hers, and he was kind.</p><p>After a moment’s hesitation, Data signed, “Other options?” His eyebrow rose with the question.</p><p>Which was what it all came down to. There weren’t any good options. Tasha was used to that, but just once in her life, she would have liked an easy choice. Staying and waiting for the cadres to expand out this far wasn’t an option. They would lose that fight. Going farther out wasn’t an option either. Something, be it a rockfall or the dust-sickness or a simple lack of food, would end it all. The towers weren’t an option for obvious reasons, the surface city unwise for more than a few weeks. Few people wandered far into the swamps and the forests, and if they didn’t go too deep, they could even come back to trade if they needed. Tasha wasn’t worried about the animals – she had Data, and Spot, and her knife, and she relished the idea of eating bigger game than rats – but they’d have to weather the storms, and Tasha couldn’t be sure that either of them could handle that. No good options.</p><p>“What do you think?” she asked Data. They were a team, after all. His opinion mattered.</p><p>Data gave it a long moment of consideration. The he lifted his head, blinking placidly at her. “Surface,” he signed. “We get in far before the monsoons, we can find or build shelter.” He cocked his head, “Yes?”</p><p>Tasha glanced around their little camp. They’d just managed to make it a home. It had taken her a long time to scavenge the coloring rocks for the walls, and Data had looked so touched when she’d brought them back, triumphant. There probably weren’t walls like this to mark up in the forests, and a pang went through Tasha at the thought of it. But they couldn’t make a decision on something that frivolous. She’d find a tree or something to carve designs into. It’d be alright.</p><p>“First thing tomorrow,” she decided aloud, “we head for the city. We’ll spend maybe a night or two there, and then we’ll head out for real.” It would give them time to scavenge supplies, to pack what they needed, but it wouldn’t be so long that the cadres would catch up, or the monsoons. She hauled herself to her feet, fixing her knife to her hip. “You start clearing things here, okay? I’ll be back soon.”</p><p>Data nodded, and set to work as Tasha slipped out between the boards, righting the curtain behind her so it blended back into the tunnel walls.</p><p>She was gone for most of the day, getting supplies. They had decent food stores left over, enough to last them awhile if she skimped. She wasn’t sure how hard it would be to find more edible food on the surface, but Tasha remembered some of the worst months of her childhood, before Data, before even Yar, when the only pangs worse than the hunger in her stomach was the withdrawals from the joy dust her mother fed her to keep her from crying out. Now, at least, if the food ran scarce, there’d be only one kind of pain to worry about.</p><p>She kept her knife on her belt, her expression wary as she slipped through the tunnels, territory that had once been gang-claimed but now served as the closest thing to a community Turkana had left, people looking to trade materials or skills for things they needed. Tasha couldn’t have said where any of them slept, and she made sure she was never followed out again, but she knew many of them by name. Askel, a scrawny boy of five or six, who traded in information on his mother’s behalf, giving news in exchange for bits of food. Jana, a woman Tasha’s age, her face and arms crossed with scars from years of brawling, stealing whatever she could from the cadres and trading it back to the unaligned civilians. Roseya, the oldest woman Tasha had ever seen, older even than Yar had been, who still remembered what life had been like before the drug lords and the cadres had come to power, who could weave textiles if you brought her the materials and let her keep the scraps. They were all just fighting to survive.</p><p>Roseya seemed pleased to see her, but then Roseya always was. Tasha had brought with her what excess they had to trade – few people could keep a cat around, so few people had meat as often as she could manage it, and there were almost always enough rats to go around – and she exchanged what she could for extra rope and another coat. Roseya gave her a knowing look as she handed it over, taking the bundle of meat from Tasha. “Going to the surface?”</p><p>“Just being prepared.”</p><p>Roseya clicked her tongue. “Be careful with the monsoons, girl. They’re liable to sweep you and your young man away.”</p><p>“We’ll keep that in mind,” Tasha said, nodding respectfully to the elder before slipping away. She got spare flint rocks from Jana, and traded Askel for updated news on the clearest path to the surface, the boy coming away with a slightly heavier bag of roasted nuts than the information was probably worth. Tasha forced herself not to think of it. It was likely she wouldn’t see these people again, and perhaps there was still a part of her, somewhere deep down, that was still just a little bit soft.</p><p>Data had packed up camp by the time she returned. Spot had sprawled out in the center, licking herself as if it would do much to untangle the matted fur. Data took the acquired items from her, bundling them in with the rest as Tasha dropped into a sprawl on the floor. She had been lucky; sometimes, coming back from the market, people would shadow you, waiting to ambush you for your supplies. Against her expectations, she hadn’t seen anyone. That would change soon. Between the monsoons and the cadres moving in, people would be getting desperate. They had picked a good time to leave.</p><p>She didn’t eat much that night. Data commented on it, but Tasha dismissed his concern. She wasn’t hungry. Her stomach gnawed at itself, but the sensation had nothing to do with food. They broke camp at morning, Data’s internal timekeeping set with Turkana’s sun ensuring that it would just be getting light as they reached the surface. They moved unhindered, Data shouldering the bulk of the weight, Spot dancing at their heels for the first mile or so, then climbing Tasha’s leg to drape herself across Tasha’s shoulders, content to be lazy and let the people do the walking. Tasha envied her.</p><p>The winds on the surface had picked up since the last time Tasha had been there. They bit into her skin, and she shivered against them. The sky was dull and grey, but bright enough that Tasha had to squint, her eyes burning at the contrast from the darkness of the tunnels. The red dirt beneath their feet was heavy and damp, and the air was wet. There were rains in the distance, rolling in on encroaching storm clouds. Beyond the ruins of the city, Tasha could see where the swamps were creeping in, reclaiming the crumbling edges, bleeding back into the forests beyond. In the other direction, the towers loomed large.</p><p>They made their camp towards the edge of the city, in a half-destroyed hovel as far from the towels and the entrances to the mine tunnels as they could make it. There would likely be patrols on the surface, for the cadres or the drug lords, and they couldn’t afford to be seen. It made lighting a fire out of the question, and it was only at Data’s insistence that Tasha ate at all, her stomach churning, barely able to keep down the bits of meat and fruit that he fed her. In the distance, as the sun went down, lights flickered on in the towers. Tasha watched it, the one wall at her back, shivering even with both her old ratty coat and the new one draped over her.</p><p>She didn’t protest when Data came to lie down behind her, taking her hands in his, the leather of his gloves warm as he massaged feeling back into her fingers. His skin shimmered faintly in the dark, but he’d deactivated the glow as a precaution. Even through the layers, he was a firebrand at her back, and Tasha squirmed back into him, plastering herself as firmly against him as she could fit, relaxing as his arms wrapped around her, holding her even when the shivering stopped. This close, Tasha could feel that he didn’t really breath, that his pulse was less a beating rhythm and more fluid, almost human but not quite. Her eyes were better accustomed to the dark, and she stared down at Data’s hands, secure against her stomach. She covered one, tracing lines in the leather. Data stilled when her fingers dipped beneath the edge, but he didn’t move away, even when Tasha peeled it off gently, exposing the metal of his fingers to her. It wasn’t as cold as she’d expected, insulated by the gloves and the warmth of the rest of Data’s body. She moved carefully, knowing from experience that if she grasped too hard, she was liable to cut herself on accident. Data held still while she mapped out his fingers with her hands, the digits flexing only when she curled them intentionally. It was a stunning piece of engineering, and on a whim, Tasha bent and pressed her lips to where his knuckles should have been. It made Data’s arms tense, and Tasha replaced the glove carefully, so she didn’t snag the cloth on metal.</p><p>She turned in his arms, and found Data watching her. His eye seemed even brighter yellow in the dark, his skin even more unnaturally pale, like a ghost was the one that held her. Part of her didn’t want to break the silence. It would mean losing Data’s arms around her. But she was still pressed up against him, and something inside her felt different tonight. Moonsickness, people sometimes called it. The way those on the surface found strange energies flowing through their body, often to the point of dizziness. Tasha didn’t feel dizzy, but she did feel a weight in her stomach, shifting and growing.</p><p>The words that left her lips were little more than whisper. “Can I ask you a question?” She managed to keep her voice steady, but her hands shook just slightly, giving her away.</p><p>It took Data a moment to answer, as if he were as reluctant to release her as she was. But, gradually, his arms pulled back, making room between them so he could sign. “Always.”</p><p>She called him ‘baby’ sometimes, as a tease. Data had raised his eyebrows the first time she’d used it, but he’d never questioned the pet name. But Tasha wasn’t teasing now. “Why don’t you ever touch me, baby?”</p><p>Data looked away, somewhere down and over her shoulder. “I am touching you,” he signed.</p><p>“You know what I mean.” Tasha reached up, hesitant, and ran her fingers gently over his cheek, tracing the lines of his face. The writhing in her stomach was turning to heat, but she ignored it. She kept her voice soft, her signs careful. “You hold me, like this. And I see you looking, sometimes. I offered, once…”</p><p>Data shook his head, cutting off Tasha’s words. “You were a child.”</p><p>Tasha stared at him, incredulous. Fifteen wasn’t a child. She’d bled before then. And even if she had been, since when had that mattered on Turkana?</p><p>But as she went to voice that, she stopped. There was a genuine pain in Data’s eyes. Of course it mattered. Data wasn’t like the men on Turkana. He’d been built differently. “I’m not a child now,” she said. She watched Data swallow hard, still not looking at her. His fingers curled into fists, as if biting back the words. She set one hand carefully on his stomach, and his eyes closed.</p><p>She removed the touch. “You don’t want me.”</p><p>She’d expected a simple headshake, but when Data opened his eyes, there was nothing simple about his expression. He signed, “Complicated.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>His hands faltered. He reached out, and Tasha closed her eyes for just a moment as he stroked her hair. She opened them again when the touch withdrew, and Data signed, “My programming. You are beautiful, but…” He hesitated. “I have been with you since you were a child.”</p><p>“I don’t understand.” She wasn’t a child anymore. “You know I want you.”</p><p>“I know.” He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I cannot be another man who tries to hurt you. I won’t.”</p><p>Tasha’s heart melted. Her chest went tight. She drew Data in, resting her forehead against his. “You couldn’t hurt me. Even if you tried, you’d never-“</p><p>Data pushed her away, not hard, but insistent. “My programming says it’s wrong!” His gestures were emphatic, his expression a mix of plea and anguish.</p><p>“It’s not wrong,” she breathed. “Baby, I promise. Maybe…maybe anywhere else it could be, but here? Baby, nothing here is <em>right</em>. Everyone hurts all the time, and it’s awful. But when I’m with you…it doesn’t hurt so much.” Their legs were tangled together, and Tasha pressed closer again. “If you really don’t want me, I’ll never bring it up again. But, if you do…I’m here. I’m here, and I’m always going to be here, because that’s where we belong. The two of us, together, facing everything side-by-side. It’s the only thing that makes sense about this place. I can’t do it without you.”</p><p>Data shuddered. His hands came up to clasp at Tasha’s shoulders, and he rested his forehead against hers again. He didn’t sign a word, his eyes closing as he held himself there, and Tasha reached up to cup his cheek, tentatively leaning forward to pressing a soft, experimental kiss to his lips. It was a sensation she’d never experienced before, only seen, and it felt strange. She pulled back when Data didn’t respond to it, uncertain. His fingers tightened against her, and then one hand came up to cup the back of her neck, drawing her back, his lips hot against hers, and Tasha gasped a little when she felt his tongue, probing gently. She let him press it into her mouth, returning the touch curiously, and moaned when it sent heat through her, coiling in her stomach.</p><p>She slid her hand down his chest, only for Data to grab it, halting it in its tracks, and Tasha was reminded sharply of the last time they had been this close, when she’d been fifteen and pressed herself into Data’s lap, because he’d been the steadiest thing in her life for three years and in some ways he could feel even younger than Ishara, but in others he was a man, and Tasha wanted to know what that felt like, because she knew her body could feel so good, and in her dreams it felt even better. She hesitated now, her throat going tight, making it hard to swallow around the lump. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her eyes flicked down between them, and then back up to his face. There was a sharpness to Data’s expression that she didn’t understand.</p><p>After a moment, he let go, and Tasha waited a few seconds, watching him, before reaching lower to cup him carefully. Whoever had built Data had skimped on many parts, but apparently this had been important to them. Tasha had never held a man like this, and her fingers were uncertain as she traced the shape of him through his pants. Data stood stock-still, no sign at all that he was breathing, not twitching a single muscle. She swallowed, and looked up at him again. “Does it…I mean…” Tasha had seen aroused men, in dark corners of the tunnels and in her memories. She was pretty sure he was supposed to be hardening. For the first time, true nervousness overtook her. “Am I…am I doing this wrong?” If she was pretty once, she wasn’t anymore, scrawny and coated with grime, her hair choppy and jagged, her face lined and hardened with age. Data had called her beautiful, but that could have just been him being sweet.</p><p>But Data shook his head in response to the question. He pulled her hands away, bringing them to his lips, pressing soft kisses into the skin. His eyes flicked up to her, questioning. Tasha wasn’t sure what he was asking, but she breathed “yes” anyway. For Data, it was always yes. He’d proved, a thousand times in a thousand ways, that he was always worth it.</p><p>She gasped as he tipped her onto her back, half-covering her. The wind howled outside and around them, but Tasha couldn’t feel the cold anymore. Everything in her burned.</p><p>Carefully, Data signed, “I have control of that function.” It took Tasha’s brain a moment to catch up, but a pointed look from Data towards his crotch gave her the meaning. He clarified, “My programming requires activation on purpose.”</p><p>“But it works,” Tasha murmured. She wet her lips, looking down between them. “It’s not me?”</p><p>Data’s lips curled into a smile. He stroked one hand over her hip, then signed, “Your touch feels good. If I were human, I would be hard for you now. Aching.” He traced over her cheeks, and Tasha forced her eyes not to flutter closed, desperate to keep seeing his words. “Another time, I will let you touch,” he told her.</p><p>“But-“</p><p>“I listened to you pleasuring yourself,” he signed, and Tasha’s breath caught. “I attempted not to, but you were saying my name. I wished to give you that pleasure.” He kissed her again, and Tasha moaned, a startled keen breaking her throat against his lips as one of his hands dipped lower, beneath her waistband. She arched into the touch, whining when he pulled it away again. “May I?” he signed, and Tasha nodded frantically, dragging him down to her, crying out as gloved hands finally descended on her, better even than her dreams had been because this was real.</p><p>Afterwards, sweat cooling on her body, Data blanketing her again, Tasha basked in the warmth inside her. “It’s never felt like that before,” she murmured, tucking her cheek against Data’s chest. His fingers were different from her own, and Tasha hadn’t been sure if it was her imagination or not at so intimate a touch inside her, but she had sworn she could feel the metal of his hands through the gloves. It had aroused her more. She’d tried to return the favor, but Data had pushed her hands away again and again, until she’d given herself over to the feeling. When she’d settled, sated, he had promised her that next time, she could touch him. She’d felt too good, hazy with pleasure and the sudden need to sleep to argue.</p><p>Data stroked her hair, and Tasha shifted in his arms, getting more comfortable. She wasn’t sure where Spot had gone, but the thought was distant. The cat would return in the morning, or sooner. As her eyelids fluttered closed, she whispered. “I wasn’t the only one, you know?”</p><p>Data’s hands paused, then gave her a questioning tap. She clarified, “You said I was a child, back then. I wasn’t the only one.”</p><p>Another tap, still questioning.</p><p>“I remember what it was like, when you first woke up. You knew…so little about the world. You were a child too. You might not have looked it, but you were.” She curled her fingers into her shirt, clutching tight. “We grew up together, baby. We had to, to survive.”</p><p>Data didn’t respond. He didn’t even try. And, sooner than she expected, Tasha drifted off to sleep.</p><p>The rains woke her in the morning. Not a full-blown storm, but enough that Spot danced around unhappily, fluffed up and hissing. Data’s hair was damp, the dark locks plastered down, but he smiled sweetly at her when Tasha pushed herself upright. She tilted her face up towards the sky, relishing the feel of water, clean water, washing down over her. She stood, and offered Data her hand. “We should get moving. We don’t want to get caught in a downpour.”</p><p>The rain kept up as they made their way into the swamps. Water couldn’t cause Data any permanent damage – at least, Tasha didn’t think it could – but his bioplast wasn’t exactly waterproof, and his steps were heavier than hers. There wasn’t anywhere safe to step, and they ended up drenched to over the knee, the going slow, Spot singing a constant song of displeasure from atop Data’s shoulders. It got better as the swamps thinned out, making way for denser thickets of trees, and by the time it was raining in earnest, they were under the thick canopy of the forest. Some droplets made it all the way to the ground, but it was dryer on the whole, and they stopped to rest, Tasha pouring water out of her boots, Data opening up his circuitry, shaking loose what he could. He was twitching a little, Tasha noted, but as they dried off it settled down again.</p><p>It took a couple days of walking before Tasha was satisfied they’d gone far enough. Her sleep was fitful, not willing to rest more than a few hours at a time, pushing on even when Data cautioned her about exhaustion. She compromised by keeping herself fed with whatever Data deemed necessary. There was game in the woods, although Tasha still hadn’t seen anything bigger than a tree squirrel, but they tasted a lot better than the rats in the mines. On the second day she even dared to light a fire to cook one, rather than scarfing it down raw, and after all the walking it felt like a luxury.</p><p>They’d seen some signs of others in the forest, markings on the trees, and they steered clear of those areas. There were some signs of shelters, old boats that had been overturned or cabins that had long since rotted and grown wild. They’d passed by a couple rock formations, some with caverns dug in, or wedged between a few of the boulders, but all had signs that someone would be back shortly, old fire remains or semi-covered packs, signs of buried food stock. Tasha wasn’t willing to risk staying to see if the inhabitants were friendly. They weren’t in the tunnels.</p><p>She saw a ship overhead once, when there’d been a break in the canopy, and both she and Data had ducked on instinct, pressing up against the trees to take shelter, watching as the unfamiliar craft dropped down towards the city. It was funny, she usually recognized the configurations. There weren’t many traders willing to come to Turkana. This one she didn’t know. Data didn’t recognize it either. There’d been a shape on the side, a bit like an arrow, but lopsided and difficult to make out at the distance. Tasha sketched it in the ground, committing it to memory, and then scuffed it over with her foot. It was good to keep an eye on comings and goings, but that was a mystery for another day.</p><p>The place they finally stopped was in a dense cluster of trees, the branches low and warped, giving footholds up the side of a particularly large boulder. There was a ledge, a slight outcropping with an overhang that would protect them from the elements. It was hidden, apparently unclaimed, and big enough for two people and a cat. Spot prowled along the branches, and Tasha hoisted herself into the cavern, her legs hanging over the side, watching with amusement as the cat danced from foothold to foothold, trilling at the birds who hopped out of reach.</p><p>Data hauled himself in next to her. He didn’t ask why they were stopping. They’d spoken little as they’d walked, but they hadn’t needed to. Something had shifted between them. It wasn’t drastic, but Tasha could feel it, a path in their relationship that they’d been walking, a fork they’d finally taken. The night before, she’d curled up by Data’s side, and he had let her slip her hand into his pants, eager but unpracticed, exploring the texture of his skin, the way he felt when he let himself harden for her, the way his eyes fluttered closed when she made him come. He didn’t produce fluid like she’d expected, but then, that was practical. It would have been something of a waste. Still. Part of her had been disappointed. Something inside her had wanted to lick the taste of him from her fingers.</p><p>Instead, he asked her, “What now?”</p><p>Tasha grinned. She reached into her pockets and pulled out a treasure, the leftover white rock that they’d used last time they’d set up camp in the tunnels. Data’s eyes widened, and he smiled too. She offered one out to him, and he took it. They worked back to back, tracing patterns in the walls, the white leaving scratches in the grey stone, meeting finally in the middle. Tasha paused when her hand bumped his, and she looked up, meeting Data’s eyes. Her smile widened, and without warning she tackled him to the ground, her hands tangling in his hair, kissing him for all she was worth, laughing against his lips at his surprise, moaning when he kissed her back. There were other things they should have been doing, she knew. Practical parts of setting up camp, making sure it was protected and hidden, making sure animals wouldn’t find their food. But that was alright. It could wait a few minutes. In the meantime, Tasha thought, it was just a relief to find somewhere that she could call home.</p>
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